


they say you can't go home again

by Stella959



Category: Avatar: Legend of Korra, Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: Afterlife, Gen, Spirit World
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-20
Updated: 2016-05-20
Packaged: 2018-06-09 16:18:30
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,242
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6914401
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Stella959/pseuds/Stella959
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>During Korra's battle against Unalaq, her connection to her past lives is severed forever. But what happens to the spirits of those who came before her?</p>
            </blockquote>





	they say you can't go home again

**Author's Note:**

> Set during and immediately after Darkness Falls, the penultimate episode of Book Two: Spirits. Title from _The House That Built Me_ by Miranda Lambert.

 

As the most recently passed Avatar, Aang was the first to feel it. It was a general uneasiness there in the pit of his stomach, the feeling that something wasn’t quite right. It quickly spread, though, and soon enough they all knew that something big was about to happen.

 

Aang and every single previous Avatar, all the way back to Wan, inhabited a space in between the worlds. It was a nexus of sorts, straddling the borders between the world of the Living, the Spirit World, and what was Beyond. As Avatars they could occasionally journey into the Spirit World, and more rarely into that of the Living under the right conditions. The one place they could never go, though, was Beyond: that was a journey of no return. 

 

The past Avatars knew that they must remain in this nexus, this world Between, in order to be available to the current Avatar. While generally it was only the most recent few that were called upon in any given lifetime for advice, they never knew whose experience might be necessary. And so they waited, alone but for themselves.

 

Time passed differently in the Between, so it seemed like Aang had either just gotten there or been there forever when that uneasy feeling began. He had only ever communicated with Korra the one time at the South Pole, but he knew that she was working on her spirituality, and had high hopes that they would be able to communicate more freely in the future. 

 

After a time he got word from Kyoshi that the uneasiness was caused by the approaching Harmonic Convergence, the likes of which hadn’t been seen since the time of Avatar Wan and wouldn’t be seen again for another ten thousand years. Upon enter the Between he had spoken with Wan, as each Avatar did, but that seemed so long ago now. He had known, of course, that the Avatar Spirit was just that: a spirit. But after introducing himself, Wan had explained the origins of that Spirit, Raava, and thanked him for what he’d done during his time as the Avatar. 

 

Aang had never imagined that Korra would learn of Wan and Raava while she was still alive, but when they felt Wan move from the Between into the Spirit World after Korra was attacked, they all knew what he was going to do. As Korra’s mentor Aang perhaps should have been more upset than he was about Wan going to Korra instead of him, but after all, Wan was the only one experienced with dealing with the Harmonic Convergence; it would do Korra no good to hear the story secondhand when she could hear it straight from the source.

 

They all watched, with bated breath (because although breathing was not necessarily required in the Between, they were all rather accustomed to doing so), as Korra and her friends entered the Spirit World immediately before the Harmonic Convergence, hoping against hope that they would carry out their mission in time. And if Aang happened to pay more attention to what his three children were doing in the Spirit World than Korra, well, it could be excused: rarely did a past Avatar get to see those they left behind, yet alone have them interact so closely with their successor.

 

He took his chance, while the others were watching Korra so closely, to jump into the Spirit World, if only for a moment. He hadn’t been there since his days as the Avatar, but one of the perks of entering from the Between was that he entered directly where he needed to be: right in front of Tenzin, in the middle of the Fog of Lost Souls. He could only stay for a few moments, a minute at most, but he took his time in admiring the man that his son had become before dispensing the words of wisdom he should have said long ago.

 

He was barely returned to to the Between, having stayed unseen in the Spirit World long enough to see that Tenzin and his family escape the Fog of Lost Souls, when he felt it. That uneasiness that had started as just a feeling spread every part of his being, and then shifted into a paralyzing sense of dread. He was frozen there in the Between, he and every other past Avatar, where they watched Raava be separated from her Avatar in the first time in almost ten thousand years. 

 

They all felt it, felt as Raava was ripped from Korra, felt it just as strongly as if it was happening to them. But they were frozen there in their collective agony, powerless, as they watched Vaatu and his Dark Avatar blast Raava against a rock.

 

And then quite suddenly, Aang was Somewhere Else.

 

###

 

The first thing Aang knew of this new place was that he was no longer standing but lying on his back. The next thing he knew, as he fought his way towards consciousness, was that he was not alone.

 

“There, there, slowly now. You’ve had quite the shock.” 

 

He knew the voice, knew the speaker, but he couldn’t quite place it. It had been so long since he had last heard that voice, so long since--

 

His eyes snapped open and he sat up straight, ignoring the pounding headache and the way the world swayed to instead look at the man who had been speaking to him.

 

“Monk Gyatso,” he breathed, almost not daring to believe it. 

 

“The one and only,” his old friend smiled. Gyatso was as Aang had always remembered him: the tips of his white mustache brushing his chin, a demure smile on his face. His faded orange robes were billowed around him where he sat on his knees, and he had a hand on Aang’s shoulder. He reached out and pulled Aang into a warm hug, and Aang couldn’t help but hug back. It had been far too long since the last time he’d hugged anybody, and even longer since he had last seen his mentor.

 

Finally they pulled apart, Gyatso rocking back to sit on his knees. He rested his hands on Aang’s shoulders.

 

“You have done so well, my young friend, and I am so proud of you.”

 

Aang took his time in drinking in the sight of his mentor, committing every detail to memory. He couldn’t believe that he was seeing him again, but if he was, that meant...

 

“Where are we?” Aang asked, looking around for the first time. They were in a long hall of what looked like one of the Air Temples, but not one with which he was familiar.

 

Gyatso did not answer his question right away; instead he stood, and held out his hand to help Aang do the same. That was when he saw that he was in the same body he’d had in the Between, the body he’d had when he was the happiest in his life. He considered, for a moment, why Gyatso looked the same as he did the last time Aang saw him, but he quickly lost that train of thought when Gyatso spoke. 

 

“We are, to put it simply, in the Beyond,” Gyatso explained. They began to walk through the Temple, whose architecture appeared to Aang to be a mix of the traditional Southern Air Temple where he’d grown up and the more modern buildings of Air Temple Island.

 

“But I am -- I was, the Avatar. I thought…” Aang trailed off, searching for the right words.

 

“You thought you would be stuck Between forever, didn’t you?” Gyatso asked softly, and Aang nodded. They rounded a corner and paused at the end of their covered walkway. Instead of the sharp drop-off or mountaintop vista that Aang half-expected, they came out on the edge of a small village, not far from the coast. To one side was the ocean and her waves lapping at the coast; to the other was a tall mountain that, Aang sensed with a start, was not a mountain at all: it was a volcano.

 

“Well, yes,” Aang finally answered. “We Avatar’s don’t get to move on like everyone else; it’s our responsibility to stay where we can be contacted by the next Avatar when they’re in need.” The words came out of his mouth like an old recitation, something he’d said (and thought) hundreds of times before. When the meaning of his words hit him, though, he froze.

 

“Wait, Korra!” He turned to Gyatso and asked, “What happened to Korra?”

 

Gyatso shook his head with a sad smile.

 

“Here we are not as close to the world of the Living as you used to be, Aang, so I cannot say for certain. If you focus, though, you should be able to feel what happened to your friend.”

 

Aang nodded, and closed his eyes. He settled his hands into a meditative position, and reached deep inside himself the way he used to when he reached for the Avatar State: if there was any way to reach for his connection to Korra, this would be it.

 

He flinched and opened his eyes with a gasp.

 

“She’s… she’s okay.” Aang said, breathing hard. “She’s alive, and back with Raava. The Avatar Spirit,” Aang added, realizing that there was no way Gyatso could know the name.

 

Gyatso, for his part, merely nodded. 

 

“But she’s still separated from us, completely cut off from her past lives,” Aang said, anxious. “Where will she seek guidance if we’re to be separated for good?”

 

“Aang,” Gyatso said suddenly, speaking in a tone he’d used rarely during his life. “When was the last time that you used sought the advice of your previous lives?”

 

Aang blushed. “A few years after the end of the War, I think.”

 

“And not once in your adult life did you ever seek advice from anyone?”

 

Aang sighed, realizing where Gyatso was going with this. “I did, and as I got older I looked to my friends for their counsel instead of my past lives.” His friends had always been more familiar with a situation than any spirit could have been, and what was more, he knew he could rely on their help with resolving whatever problem they faced.

 

Gyatso nodded. “Just as your successor will do now that she is without contact to her past lives. If she is anything like you, she will have surrounded herself with those whose opinions she values the most.”

 

They resumed their way, although where they were going Aang couldn’t say. After a short time they came upon a modest home that sat on the coast, sitting just far enough back from the waters to be safe in all but the worst of storms. Not a minute after they arrived the door opened and out came Avatar Roku, followed by a woman that Aang recognized as his wife, Ta Min. Roku was younger than he’d ever appeared to Aang, his beard shorter and still dark.

 

“Aang,” Roku said, drawing him in for a hug. “When you disappeared, I feared the worst.”

 

“Disappeared?” Aang asked, confused.

 

Roku nodded gravely. “During the Harmonic Convergence, you disappeared soon after Raava took her first hit. I don’t know what happened next, though, as I awoke here not long after.”

 

Aang took a moment to explain what he had sensed about Korra, Roku confirmed his understanding of Korra’s situation after he did the same. Then the Firebender turned to Gyatso, who had been quietly waiting behind Aang.

 

“Gyatso, my friend. I thought I would never see you again.”

 

Aang stepped back so that the two men could embrace, and ended up next to Ta Min.

 

“Thank you,” she said quietly to Aang. “Roku did not die a peaceful death, and I feared that he may never find peace after Sozin’s betrayal. But being your guide and helping you grow gave him a new purpose in his afterlife, and I have you to thank for that.”

 

Aang nodded, not really knowing what to say to that. Thankfully he didn’t have to figure out a reply, as Roku and Gyatso turned back to him and Ta Min. 

 

“So what now?” Aang asked. “If this is it, if this is the Beyond and there is nothing else past this, what do we do now?” He felt like a kid again, having woken up once again in an unfamiliar world.

 

“For one thing,” Gyatso said, “I believe that I’m not your only friend that’s already here. I made the acquaintance not too long ago of a man called Sokka, who sought me out to regale me with his tales of your travels.”

 

Aang thought of Sokka with a pang; Sokka, who’d died only a few years after Korra was born. And Suki, who’d passed not long after. He thought of Mai and Ty Lee, who he’d lost contact with in his last few years, but who he knew had also passed in the years since his death. And oh, Bumi, who he’d named his first son after, and Kuzon, his friend who he had not seen in almost two hundred years. He had so many friends who had passed on before him and even since his death, enough that with them he thought he could be busy for a long time. Or at the very least, until Katara showed up.

 

“You’re right,” Aang said, his voice catching in his throat. “I have a lot of catching up to do.”


End file.
